Campesinado, cambio agrario y usos comunales: la dehesa de La Laguna (Tenerife), 1498-1769

This work analyses the strategies applied by the Council [Ancien Regime local authority] of Tene­rife in the management of the Dehesa [enclosed common lands] and their long-term repercussions on the social profile of the peasantry. The Council sought to increase its revenues in the sixteenth century by promoting grain cultivation on a biennial rotation schedule, with communal use of fallow land and stubble, along with annual land auctions oriented toward the small peasantry. When grain production collapsed in the mid-seventeenth century, diminishing revenues led the Council of Tenerife to change its strategy. The land transfer system was modified in order to facilitate the introduction of agricultural improvements, which favoured the development of a group of prospe-rous farmers who eventually capitalised the cultivation of the common lands. They introduced new crops, more complex crop rotation systems and more efficient land use for cultivation; but these improvements virtually eradicated the communal use of the Dehesa.